Vampire Royalty Wedding

Creatrix Photography

May 20, 2017

Daley and Logan met at a goth club in Austin seven years ago. They began hosting events together, including the Austin Vampire Ball, which is actually where they got engaged! Their wedding theme was suitably ‘vampire royalty’ and and they wanted their wedding to be one-of-a-kind, but with some nods to tradition.

“Since we are the nominated king and queen of the Vampire Court of Austin, we wanted a wedding that would reflect that,” began Daley. “We also took some design inspiration from Phantom of the Opera and Beauty and The Beast, but essentially we were our own inspiration for our wedding. We wanted people to walk in and immediately say ‘This is definitely Logan and Daley’.”

“We wanted a very unique wedding with some surprisingly traditional aspects. Logan wore custom armour (crafted after the armour from Dracula Untold), with his fangs and green contacts. We also had a dragon cake with a replica of Dracula’s Castle, a crowning ceremony, and more red lighting and flowers than you could shake a stick at!”

The couple went all out for their wedding ceremony, which their guests said was their favourite part of the wedding. “The groomsmen and groom walked down the aisle to war drums carrying swords. When it was my time to walk, the doors opened and I walked out of an explosion of red fog that looked like fire. Our ceremony was officiated by vampire leader and author Michelle Belanger, and we had a unity candle, readings, personal vows, and a crowning ceremony right after the ring ceremony. Our first kiss was celebrated with an explosion of red rose petals overhead. Even though we wrote our personal vows separately, they were extremely similar which caused a lot of shock and tears when we finally spoke them to each other.”

Daley’s favourite part of the day was also their ceremony, and being surrounded by family and friends. “Other than marrying the love of my life, I think my favourite part was being surrounded by so much love and support from people we hadn’t seen in years. Our maid of honour and best man also did some amazing toasts at our reception!”

The wedding turned out to be a lot more expensive than they’d hoped, they originally budgeted for $30,000 but ended up spending a whopping $120,000. “We’ve planned weddings before for other people, but preparing for our own was very different. We were way off on how much everything cost and our eyes were way bigger than our wallet! Our biggest expenses were rentals, flowers and catering. We had 300 people we had to feed and a ton of tables to decorate and provide with flatware. However the flowers were donated to local hospitals and nursing homes after the wedding and the leftover food was donated to homeless shelters. Our favours were also a donation to Wish Upon a Wedding.”

“We saved money on my dresses as I bought them at sample sales and saved thousands. I spent a decent amount having them altered but no where near the amount I would have spent had I ordered them full price! We didn’t really do any DIY projects, the only thing we did ourselves was stuffing and sealing the invitations with our custom wax seal.”

Their photographer was Jenna from Creatrix Photography. They not only hired her for the wedding day, but to do a day-after portrait session as well. “The best thing about planning our wedding was getting to experience the entire journey together, but the worst thing was the stress. Having a huge expensive wedding definitely takes a lot of energy and prep, and we put in a lot of both. While we are super happy with how everything turned out, we do wish we had stuck to our budget a little more! We also wish we had bought more time at the venue since we barely had time to fit everything in.”

“Our advice for future brides and grooms is, unless you are having a super simple wedding, hire a planner!” she concluded. “Don’t be afraid to put your foot down on getting exactly what you want, and hire professionals. I know it may seem easier and cheaper to hire friends to do things for you, but you will be happier with the overall quality from a professional. We are so happy with the way our wedding turned out, it was a perfect representation of us as a couple and our individual personalities.”

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